…largely thanks to Jane, who is working as hard as I am on her own Ring of Lightning. I’m doing Hellburner while waiting for the files on Heavy Time…and we had contact with OSG, who is back from NYC, having seen every show in town. I am way behind in Christmas shopping; Jane and I have 2 gift-givings, one at Christmas, one at New Year’s, just because a little of a good thing isn’t enough. I thought I was going to get her a new video game, but I find that Dragon Age, which looks nice, won’t run on less than Core 2; and I think we’re hosed.
Ah, well: the old machine is getting along fine thus far. It crashes programs every hour on the hour, and I’d like to mend that habit: I think it’s because I keep changing from MS Office to Corel Word Perfect, and then to Namo Html, often—they don’t always play well together; and somewhere MS Word got the idea it should be my e-mail editor, and is fighting with both Outlook Express and Outlook: hush, you Mac users. :lol:. We’ll get it fixed.
I am through chapter 5 on Hellburner. I have a cover. And things are going apace on Ring. So we’re hoping to have new books up in January—plus cups, tee shirts, etc, etc. You cannot imagine the wonders we will offer.
We are so tired—but we are able to look back on what we’ve accomplished this year and be happy. I’m going to get Bren’s book finished very soon, amid all of this, and we are going to leave our Christmas decorations up until at least Valentine’s, because we’ve been so late. We may even display our Christmas tree to the neighborhood until Valentine’s, because, hey, we’re late. But it’s a good late.
Don’t expect prezzies until, oh–say around Twelfth Night! Between bum fingers, Macon, and a half-dozen other priorities, I’ve pretty much given up on Christmas. The tree and accompanying decorations didn’t go up before I headed off to Macon, because I didn’t trust Feather to leave them alone while I was gone and there’s no time to get them up now.
Meantime, my new quad-core machine sits on the dining-room table. I got the operating system in (Win7) and the security (Norton…which, knock on wood has always served me well), but not software, not even Word Perfect X4 which promises to handle PDFs natively and, who knows, might handle other formats, too.
😆 for Feather, a most worthy kitty. We’re running on the 12th night schedule also.
And let me know on WPx4. I had a brief re-flirtation with Word during the scan edits—but alas, it just cannot handle formats the way WP can, not by a long shot. I always grit my teeth when upgrading Word Perfect, for fear it could have lost some of its translating ability during the upgrade: there’s hardly anything WP12 can’t read, even the old Volkswriter files.
Don’t you know the proper time to decorate a tree is Christmas Eve? NOT the day after Halloween ;D And then you take it down on Twelvth Night (or thereafter). I just today got a SPLENDID cedar tree off the property set up in the living room of the farm. The tiniest flexible twigs touch the ceiling. Smells WONDERFUL. It will need all the ornaments I own, some that haven’t been used in years. And a ladder.
Hope your heron stays away. Can you cover the entire melted area wuth netting?
Alas, we’re both deathly allergic to evergreen mold, so I even have to stay out of Costco once they bring in the garland to sell. I love the smell, however. We have a lovely fiber-optic artificial tree…but it’s still in the bag, and getting through our living room is worth your life…boxes, boxes, boxes, and poor Jane spent part of last evening gluing a complex ornament (a lighted castle) back together after my lighted salt crystal edged off the mantel and fell on it.
Re the heron: haven’t seen him again, and my workstation has a window facing the pond. But netting is one thing I’m thinking about for next year, if we have any losses. Our pond is shaped like England, and the floating black shield covers Scotland within a foot of its banks, so the fish stay centered under that, on the bottom. If the weather keeps warming they may rouse out a little, which worries me, because they’re not too bright when torporous, but the fact we have so much ice still submerged under the rain will probably keep them asleep.
We are getting some stuff up for the SolstIce…..Today! Snow and ice lanterns….to drive the dark away. Twenty inches or so of snow on the ground and cold and windy, but so sunny it makes your eyes ache.
To all those who have a bit of the pagan in their hearts….HAPPY SOLSTICE!!
Happy solstice and merry finish of the analemma! 😉
Happy Solstice indeed! The year turns, and the planet behaves as it should. People should be happy about that!
That’s a really Grinch-y allergy to have 🙁
I used to have a lovely fiber-optic spray, like a fountain — back before LED technology — the light housing in the center broke, probably heat fatigue of the plastic. I kept the fiber spray for YEARS as part of my clutter. Now that the lights are available to do something creative with it, who knows where it is? Not I.
HAPPY SOLSTICE to one and all! And we have a 70% chance of snow on Christmas Eve in the KC area. My ornaments are all stars, moons and birds; alas we have no tree yet. I could decorate the houseplants, hmmm….
Our household ornaments are stags (Jane) (not deer and not reindeer, she will tell you)—and me—I spotted some white snowflake fairies from Hallmark back in about 1983. They were so fun I ran to every Hallmark seller in Oklahoma City and nabbed 8 of them in the after-Christmas sales. And garland of crystal snowflakes which just happened to match the snowflakes they’re holding. So the next year I had a white tree with blue lights and these white ornaments and it was very pretty. So Jane arrived with stags, and we now have stags and fairies everywhere, although the cervines have begun to spread to ledges and other unexpected places. We have a thing for Marvin the Martian, and can’t pass up a Marvin ornament. And mirrored ornaments. No more white trees. Jane likes green, and this dark green fiber optic tree we have convinced me. The flocking on artificial trees molds as it breaks down, so you only get a couple of years’ use: this will be the 4th year for this tree. And we’re going to make it tomorrow, we’re pretty sure.
We’re hoping some enterprising manufacturer combines LED with fiber optic technology by next year. That could produce some real pretty effects with more reliability.
But I have done almost all my shopping—almost all online. So that’s handled. Whew!
Ah, Marvin: “What happened to the kaboom!? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!”
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CJ, in re: Dragon Age, I’m pretty sure Jane’s new laptop has a Core2…Have a Merry and a Happy!
Jeff